you look different with no horizon
by countertime
Summary: Sheldon discovers superpowers, scifi objects, and his one weakness. A 5 things fic with crossovers and eventual Sheldon/Penny bias
1. The Signal

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**Five Seemingly Useless Superpowers Sheldon Cooper Stumbles Upon and One Weakness He Doesn't Want to Get Rid Of.**

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The ringing in his ears won't stop.

He pulls out his medical textbooks and systematically assesses his condition. It is intermittent but not synchronous with his heart beat. He jumps to the building next door to test for vertigo and then sets up his computer to emit a series of beeps in different frequencies. He hears all of them.

Stephanie insists that there are no signs of infection and that the MRI would have detected any masses.

He foregoes the use of aspirin, demands his friends speak in a lower register- if they insist on speaking at all, lets the wax build up in his ears, and taps the tuning fork and performs Weber and Rinne's test to rule out nerve damage.

It's a symptom, not a disease, and he systematically rules out the variables.

But nothing helps and nothing changes.

Except one day when it does.

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"Leonard it occurs to me that your girlfriend is not familiar with the documents you signed when we established our living arrangements. And since she is now for all effects living here as well-"

"Stephanie has not moved in!"

"Three consecutive nights a week or two full weekends. Regardless, whistling is not permitted."

"Stephanie hasn't been whistling. And neither have I! I already have two strikes."

"As you'll do well to remember."

"No one is whistling!"

"I disagree. It is an incessant sound like this." Sheldon demonstrates artlessly.

"Like this?" Leonard repeats the tune.

"No, it is of a lower frequency on the 4th beat."

Leonard tries again. And again.

"Yes! It's that exactly! Leonard you have been whistling."

"I told you I haven't"

"Well that is patently not true."

Neither notice how pale Wolowitz has become.

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Wolowitz bumps into him in the hallway and before he can offer a scathing comment on his inattention, Howard fixes him with wide eyes and slips a piece of paper into his hand.

He watches him retreat then promptly retraces his steps to the restroom, to the middle stall, where he opens it and commits the message to memory. He then flushes it down the toilet.

He is to meet Wolowitz at three am in the Mars Rover control room.

The ringing doesn't stop.

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"Sheldon."

"Wolowitz." He closes the door behind him and waits for Howard to finish at the controls.

"Do you hear it now?"

"Hear what?"

"We thought it was feedback at first. But then it changed." He hits play on the recording and when Sheldon recognizes it, can in fact predict what is to come next, Howard stops.

"But that's the whistling I've been hearing around the apartment."

"Every night at 3:15am. We get another transmission. The same tune. Sheldon, I don't think its random feedback."

They wait fifteen more minutes, until the static from the speakers changes to a listless almost whistle.

Sheldon covers his ears but it won't go away, only changes a little, lilting.

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Sheldon meets Wolowitz every night. They analyze the whistle down to its mathematical derivative, a code that seems to be in three dimensions. They use what they've learned to construct a tune of their own, and piggyback the signal on top of some basic motor functions.

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Two nights later, the tune changes.

{He hears hello}

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	2. The Lost Room

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He is coming out of the comic book store when he hears a squat man banish someone to Hell. He's about to speak up about the improbability and the religious inconsistencies, when he notices that the object of his ire has quite literally blinked out of existence.

A man of lesser IQ would have dismissed it, would have rationalized it away. But Sheldon Cooper's mind does not play tricks on him.

The squat man is clearly a superhero.

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Sheldon attempts to follow the man discretely but it is ultimately futile to deceive a caped crusader.

The location the man is walking towards seems to anticipate some sort of confrontation but even with the forewarning, Sheldon cannot completely avoid a small scuffle with the squat man. He uses his size as a lever and pins the man's arm down before he can reach into his pocket. Sheldon registers the man's rapid breathing and wide eyes and catalogues it as fear.

The data would indicate that the man is neither super nor particularly gifted in mental prowess.

"Are you with the Order?" the man demands.

"I don't understand the question."

"Does the Legion mean anything to you?"

Sheldon shakes his head no.

"Then let me go before I banish you to Hell!"

"Your current predicament suggests that if you could you would have already done so- if Hell was more than a construct of the mind."

The man looks a little confused but shakes it off visibly. "Why were you following me then?"

"The man at the restaurant. Where did he go?"

"…Hell?"

"There is no such place. You are in possession of some sort of teleportation device."

"New Mexico. Same thing. " The man starts to struggle.

"The paper you tapped him with, of what material is it composed of?"

But the man slips through his grasp, and disappears.

The spot where he was smells like ozone.

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An instantaneous transport from any spot, conceivably from any point on this world or off, to a fixed point in New Mexico would require a massive generation of energy. He pulls his equations together and reworks them on his white board, again and again. He goes so far as to leave the board out for Leslie Winkle's assessment. Until he stops to reassess his assumptions.

Maybe the paper was not cleverly disguised recall device hooked up to a larger transmit in New Mexico. Maybe it really was a piece of paper.

Occam's Razor.

He is very nearly furious with himself.

He runs a web search on the Order and the Legion. They are only referenced obliquely in several forums, and always in riddles and code. There are constant references to "Objects", always capitalized, with properties spoken about with words of reverence or fear. He dismisses both emotions and scrolls down to a webpage for a dry cleaner. He runs several more searches with keywords he picks up in the forums.

The dry cleaner always shows up.

Sheldon calls for Leonard, tells him he needs to process the information. Leonard gives an eye roll at this but follows him out the apartment.

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They are at Chow's when Sheldon notices a strung out brunette in the corner pull out a yellow number two pencil and tap the eraser on the table. He watches, transfixed, as the laws of conversation of matter are defied before him.

Tap. A penny appears.

Tap. Another.

Tap. And another.

"Sheldon!" Leonard tries again, irate.

But Sheldon has found his answer.

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He prints out the address of the dry cleaners.

Leonard drives all night.

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Suzie Kang navigates them through a maze of button down suits and delicates to the back of Kang's Dry Cleaners and pulls out a map, worn with ink markings in dozens of colors. Sheldon starts to see a pattern before she slams her hand down to catch his attention.

"This isn't going to be cheap."

"I brought proper reimbursement for the information."

He pulls out a peanut brittle can and ignores Leonard's embarrassment as the snakes neatly miss Suzie Kang. She peers over her horn rimmed glasses and stares at him hard.

"They guard the money." Sheldon explains.

"..You're not like the others," Suzie takes another considerate drag off her cigarette. "This is a tougher business than you know."

She counts the money anyway.

"Sheldon-" Leonard is spooked. His derivative research has always pointed out that if he is comfortable in the abstract, it is only so long as it is proven. The world of flight and adamantium skeletons are stuff of comic legend and have long since been divided from reality in Leonard's mind.

Sheldon has never made such a distinction.

"Are the funds sufficient? I have more if it is not." He states, already reaching for Green Lantern.

Her cigarette quirks between her lips and she shakes her head, bemused.

"The Bus Ticket, right? It isn't an object most people look for. But it's an easy one to hold onto once you've got it."

"No, I don't want to find it. I want to know how it works, where it's from."

"Dude, if you're going to theorize, I'm going to charge extra."

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It turns out Suzie Kang doesn't need the cash so much as she needs someone with computer skills.

Sheldon negotiates the fee while Leonard sets up the software on her current DOS system. They create several small programs that point out patterns and catalogue and by the second hour Suzie has dismissed them enough to freely talk about the Objects and their powers.

What Sheldon doesn't share is that he's figured out how to get the Key.

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It's unsurprising that in a population of labradoodles that no one has realized what the Objects are, what the Key can do- besides opening any door in the world with a tumbler lock.

But then there are only seven experts in string theory, and only two share his hemisphere.

Sheldon types in the equation in the black hole simulation Leonard has left running in his lab, hits enter and then ducks as the whole setup sparks and the lights go out. He flicks on his Batman flashlight.

When the power is fixed in southern California, Sheldon has already used the Key.

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Sheldon has never been in a motel room. The bacteria count alone is enough to send him back through the door, but he steels himself and stays.

The room exists everywhere and nowhere. At the center of everything. An echo of the big bang that reached into the universe and tore out a tiny motel room sized hole.

A gateway.

He spends hours systematically opening the door to every location he can think of.

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He has the place in mind, holds it there. Wipes his sweaty hands on the front of his Flash t-shirt and comforts himself with all he knows of string theory and the 26 dimensions that are in the universe, in _every _universe. It will work because there is only one place he wishes to go.

He turns the Key.

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{The light in Central City is the most perfect thing he's ever seen}

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[author note]: Central City is Flash's hometown. In two alternative endings to this scenario, Sheldon becomes the prime object and in the other version Sheldon and Penny/Leonard become collectors (cause Sheldon needs someone to drive him). This is a crossover with the Lost Room tv series from scifi, if you've seen it this fits in brilliantly- if not here are some spoilers. _The lost room is a hotel room that was somehow ripped out of time and space, it is now sortof everywhere and nowhere. the objects inside the room are indestructable once taken out of the room and each have peculiar qualities in addition- like a wristwatch that can boil an egg. The man that holds the bus ticket is named Wally (FLASH REF AS WELL) and plays a big part in the series. Margaret Cho's character Suzie is an "object finder" and will locate objects for you for a price. There are two big groups - the order and the legion- who want to collect the objects for their own purposes and will pry them from your cold dead hands need be. _


	3. Sheldon vs the Intersect

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"_Nobody can be that attractive and be that good at a video game!"_

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He hasn't heard from Bryce since Stanford. He was eleven, so it is understandable that he assumed their association to end there.

But seventeen years later, there is an email with only one line.

_The terrible troll raises his sword._

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Sheldon wakes up the next morning with the cry of danger barely past his lips when he realizes that he is still at his desk, disheveled and covered in dry sweat.

The email is open on his laptop, the cursor blinking at the end of his response; _Attack with neutrino emission._

He rubs a hand over his eyes. It feels like he hasn't blinked in hours.

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He's late and his disrupted routine is fraying at whatever usually passes as his patience. He checks his watch again and re edits his schedule in his head. When he finally arrives at the auditorium, he finds that his class has been assembled for some time.

It's an advanced class; the only level Sheldon can tolerate and indulged by Dr. Gablehauser solely because his research is so highly regarded. The catch 22 being, of course, that his presence in the classroom is required to attract the more gifted of grad students.

He's in the middle of quantum theory when he sees her. And she's-

_beautiful_ his mind supplies.

Beautiful and out of place, he corrects. She's golden and tanned, he observes clinically, obviously a tourist. She won't last the class.

He finds himself disappointed when he's right.

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He meets everyone at lunch at their usual table.

"They took out twelve colonies! By sheer number alone the Cylons win." Howard waves his hands vaguely to demonstrate how big a number that is.

"The Terminators are clearly the superior robot overlord. How are we even discussing this?" Raj fumed.

"There are trying to win the war by going back in time. That's just desperate." Howard shoots back.

"Like dressing up as Edward from Twilight?"

"Hey! What happens at Comic Con stays at Comic Con."

"You started it dude."

Sheldon hasn't registered a word of their conversation. His mouth is going dry and his attention is instead focused on the far end of the cafeteria. On Kripke and the file in his hand.

_The insignia is North Korean Intelligence Agency. John Kripke has had and maintained contact since 2005. Father, Ivan Kripke, former KGB. Threat level Orange._

"Actually, I think the Agents from the Matrix would win. They are the only artificial intelligence to actually succeed in subduing the human race." Leonard manages to interject.

Both Raj and Howard stare at him blankly before turning back to each other.

"The Cylons aren't even trained in martial arts or in advanced weapons. They're human knock-offs."

"I disagree, the Cylons are hotter."

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Theory versus fact, Sheldon can feel the difference in his mind.

His flash in the cafeteria felt like fact. A constant, a known.

He just can't figure out why.

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Someone is already in his office when he returns.

"You can't be in my office." Sheldon stops abruptly, realizing who the intruder standing in front of his dry erase boards is.

"This is some serious stuff," the golden girl from his class turns to look at him with a bright smile. "You're like one of those beautiful mind genius guys."

His mouth is dry again but for completely different reasons. He leans against the door, "Yah."

"Wow. Impressive."

He can tell that she means it.

He racks his brain for the correct social paradigm, but can only come up with thanks.

She shrugs it off, "You probably get that all the time."

"Not without the expectation of rivalry and assertion of their own hubris in whatever mediocrity their research has formed."

She wrinkles her brow, trying to catch his meaning, "Well, I'm not a rival or a hubr- a researcher." she laughs softly at her stumble. She extends a hand, "I'm Penny."

"Dr. Sheldon Cooper."

He doesn't take her hand.

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Penny is as bright as the sun he can't seem to stop comparing her to. She tells him she's writing a publicity article for the school and starts listing the particulars of what type of access she needs from him when Sheldon overhears Kripke talk about an art auction.

Something tugs at the back of his mind and—

_Black market plutonium and tritium suspected to be transported via Norton Simon Museum. _

Penny has stopped talking and the expression on her face, well it's the same one he wears on his all the time. Blank and not immediately forthcoming.

But he catches her eye, recovering from what he rapidly fears to be petit mal seizures, and the look is gone instantly. Replaced by a cheerful smile.

"How about I finish these questions over dinner? You pick the place."

"The Norton Simon Museum Café," He blurts out and almost takes it back. Today's Thai night and the Café isn't on his preapproved list of spontaneous dining excursions.

"Sounds fancy Professor. I'll pick you up," She's breezing past him.

"..Sheldon." He calls after her, catching her before she turns past the door.

"You can call me Sheldon."

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Their apartment has been broken into.

They missed most of the expensive items in their apartment in favor for some kitchen appliances and Sheldon's laptop.

Lois/Louise from across the hall hadn't heard a thing.

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Neither one of them had made reservations, but Sheldon insists they stay for the auction.

Insistently.

Penny gives him a half exasperated glare before walking over to an attendant. She speaks briefly with him and then motions him over. They enter a lavish room in which his Batman t-shirt does not endear himself to the affluent bidders.

An opinion to which Penny evidently agrees with as she loops her arm thru his, using her radiance to mask his quirks.

His arm dangles in her grip as he wonders what he's supposed to do with it.

"I had no idea the journalistic community had such pull in high society."

"Well, you'd be surprised what a little Lois Lane routine can do for you."

He gives a half snicker. Genuine. Penny stares at him before smiling a little.

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They quietly observe the bidding. It isn't until a Russian Babushka doll is on the table that he notices Kripke. Bidding avidly.

"Two thousand fifty!" Sheldon calls out, surpassing the current bid by hundreds. He's surprised at himself and looks to Penny. Penny who is gaping at him and Kripke-

Kripke looks like he sees another MONT-E.

"Sheldon, what the hell?" Penny says over the Auctioneer.

"Sold! To the man in the eclectic apparel."

They are shown into a back room to work out the finances. Sheldon takes the doll, considering.

"Well. As with action figures, I'm sure it's worth will increase over time."

"Sheldon."

"I suppose the market is generally an older crowd however."

"Sheldon."

"I'll have to wait until the net worth increases to a point where the collectors aren't so close to death that they will not invest in another heirloom."

"SHELDON!"

"Pardon me Penny, these matters need considering."

"I think we should consider leaving. _Now_." There's ice in her voice and he follows her gaze to Kripke and two significantly muscled men.

_Former Russian KGB._

Oh.

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"Doctah Cooper. What an unpleasant supwise." He looks Penny up and down, "Wow. Hey, sweet cheeks why don't you come on ower to the winning side?"

"No, thanks. I'm good on my asshole quota…asshole."

"Well, he cewtainly didn't choose you for your smarts." He chuckles to his men, jumping when the knives hit them.

Sheldon turns to see Penny retract her arms from throwing position and grab his.

But the knives weren't enough to stop former KGB and he holds the doll tightly in hand as they rush into a stairwell.

"Keep going!"

Up and up they go to the top.

She shoves him to the side. He watches her grab an agent as he comes out of the door, using him as a shield. When he's shot, she grabs the gun from his hand and shoots the other one.

Kripke is nowhere in sight.

It's just him and Penny.

And two bleeding bodies.

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Penny turns with the gun in her hand and he stumbles backward with the memory/fact that rushes thru his head.

_Three men down, shot in the chest, she looks up at the camera and shoots that as well._

Whatever she is, she isn't what she seems.

"Sheldon, honey, stop moving. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm CIA. Please, you need to trust me. Back away from the edge sweetie."

"They're dead. You've deceived me. Is Penny even your name!?" He shaking badly. He looks up and sees a helicopter-

He's flashing again.

_Operation Oncoming Storm. Operators placed within Iranian government to ensure oil trade with USA. Agent suspected renegade. Situation under reassessment. _

He drops the doll. They both see the cylinder of plutonium where the smallest doll should be.

"You knew that was in there. How did you- " Penny has ceased pleading and is looking at him in wonder.

Sheldon shakes his head. He had suspicions, but mostly Kripke made him uneasy. "No, I had no data on any illegal smuggling."

But Penny is still gaping at him, "Bryce emailed a complex government database to you and you _downloaded_ it. Right inside that beautiful genius mind of yours!" She crows.

He is immediately appalled. "I need my brain, get it out immediately!!"

"No wonder we couldn't pull any data from your laptop. You must have been flashing on top secret information all day." She looks up, suddenly sympathetic. "Honey, we'll get it out."

He has his doubts about that. "What do I do in the meantime?"

"You're kinda a national security threat. I'll have to take you into custody." She looks contrite and even though she's lied to him all day, he trusts the expression.

"No. _No_. I have a Nobel Prize to win and Leonard is slovenly without my direction."

She nods, her expression thoughtful as she considers his words.

"…We'll work something out."

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Leonard stops abruptly in front of him and it takes Sheldon only moments to conclude that they have a new neighbor.

She looks him dead in the eye and introduces herself while he dumbly echoes back a hello.

Penny.

{Her name is fake but her smile is real}

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{author note}: this is a crossover with NBC's Chuck, sort of a modern day spy story where Chuck downloads a database compounded by the CIA FBI and NCIS and flashes on top secret information. He is guarded by two agents who pose as his girlfriend and coworker respectively. Kripke kinda ended up the way of Bond villians which was unintential but I find kinda amusing. In the spirit of cheesy spylore anyway.


	4. The Time Traveler's Wife

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He was four and very lost when he first met her.

"You don't belong here sweetie."

She wrapped her coat around him, red leather, it hung off him like a snake's shuffed off skin. He wonders where his clothes have gone, but only for a moment.

She had honey colored hair and a mouth full of smiles. She smelled like apples (he likes apples, they are a very practical fruit.)

"This is important, you need to remember. Running helps. No matter where you end up, you can always run home."

He doesn't understand, not really, and he understands everything.

She kisses the top of his head, her eyes bright, "now run."

He does.

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Sheldon doesn't lie. He told what had happened exactly how it had happened. His mother knew of the blonde lady and had examined the frankly cheap faux leather jacket and seemed torn between crying kidnapper or good samaritan. She didn't, however, seem content to let it be, seemed hell bent on extracting the events of his missing three days when all he could recall were ten minutes, which he did so faithfully. They were facts (he liked facts, liked things true) but his mother treated them as if he was keeping something from her. He wasn't sure what that could be.

Truth was, he found his mother tedious and much rather the company of his Meemaw. Quiet and accepting, he heard her talk to his mother about him sometimes. "Let him be," she'd murmur. She was consistent with him. He liked that she felt like a fact that he could roll around, a constant to his mother's various moods. And, while these ten minutes were the only facts his mother seemed to want, his Meemaw listened to him chatter about the flight of bees, Pluto's orbit, Missy being in his room, and the flash. Meemaw understood that the truth was incredible enough (that he was enough.)

Then four years later she was dead and it was not a fact he liked. He just wanted her, (_he wanted her, he wanted her). _He was rocking; his fist in his mouth and the gurgling he heard didn't seem to come from him at all.

He didn't immediately connect the grass on his skin or the chill of the night. He was curious of his loss of clothes but too held by his grief to be confused. The lights in his Meemaw's house were on so he went in, prepared to deal with his mother. She had her back to him, kneading bread, humming a song he couldn't quiet place until he did- and still he didn't realize why he was startled immediately. Not until she exclaimed softly in his grandmother's voice. Not until she turned around with his grandmother's face, younger than he'd ever known her.

If she is offended by the presence of a naked little boy in her kitchen she doesn't let on. Instead she takes off her apron and drapes it around him securely, leading him to the table. She asks him if he wants pie and he nods, hungrier then he's ever been, a gnawing in his belly and eyes ravenously on hers. She brings him the plate and watches him finish before placing another slice.

"You got a name duckling?" he nods his head. She smiles sweetly at his non-answer and continues nonplussed, "do you know where your mother is?" Upstairs he wants to say, but doesn't. She tilts her head and considers him. He doesn't know what she sees but she talks, just talks, her voice low and like honey. Tells him about her day and her family and how to make pie and the light in the kitchen is a warm yellow and her eyes are kind and she is not the Meemaw he grieves for but she is and he drinks her in. Her face starts to fade. When the golden of the kitchen is instead bathed by the stark bright day, he calmly gets up and goes to his room to dress. When he comes down, still madly calm, he goes to his mother and holds her hand. She is tired and drawn and asks him where he's been.

He lies.

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He joins track. Missy thinks he does it to appease their parents, to give them something they can relate to. Clearly, she hasn't thought it through or she'd realize that Sheldon isn't good at playing at normal, more to the point, it would never occur to him to give his parents that sort of consideration.

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"Now I know you're smart Shelly but that ain't no reason to go and be impolite."

His mother is repacking his bag, adding unnecessary weight with things like picture frames and baked goods, and he is hoping she doesn't dig too deep.

"Of course, mother." He plays with the bolt of lightning on his action figure, fingers twitchy.

"I don't care how dumb you think a man is, you respect your elders, you get me?"

He doesn't, not really, not when they don't respect him first. But he holds his tongue this once, because she is letting him go and she has hardly ever let him out of her sight.

Germany for a semester. She won't let him buy milk alone, but even she can see his work is important.

He feels rather than sees her still, and he knows she's touched leather and there is only one thing in his possession made of it.

Her shoulders tense, and he is as taunt as a bow ready to shoot up but she's already whipped her hand away and zipped up the bag.

"I've got a list of souvenirs you need to buy the family. You bring back something nice for your sister, she is in a right fit that she can't go too." She bustles about the room and won't meet his eye.

He nods.

They don't talk about his disappearance anymore.

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It took him three weeks to identify what he was feeling. Lonely, he thought, was something that plagued those who could not find their own company fortuitous. But he finds that the German professors that were supposed to be his equals had already dismissed him on his age, and his students were about as stimulating as labradoodles.

He realizes that he had hoped for someone who understood the pattern of electrons that swam beneath his skin. He had just wanted someone to understand he realizes; with all the viciousness that hope had inspired, he buries the feeling and instead looks at his comic books and makes his decision. He runs like a flash in the night, every night, hard and fast and with purpose.

He runs as if he could run home.

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Occasionally he runs into himself. Stupid meaningless jumps to times that aren't the least bit emotionally resonant, only mathematically significant. He's seen October 5, 2000 5:25 pm more times than he'd care for. Even though at that time, he hadn't felt anything unusual at all (and if he still wonders if he'll see his Meemaw again, well, that's a feeling he won't name and can't acknowledge).

But the more he visits a time the closer he gets to understanding why. If he laid out all of space and time on a map, with each point a specific coordinate he can almost chart his next destination. In fact, he could have won the Nobel twice over with basic equations of his condition had he not had some pride in the incompleteness of his work.

Because it's practical, because sometimes he can't keep track of days because the jumps are so frequent; he falls into a routine so that he can easily pick up what day it is when he does happen to cross his own timeline. He gets into the habit of leaving survival packages in his room and across town that he can easily pick up, wonders how he can bring things back with him but can take nothing.

And he plans. When the equations don't come, when his boards are blank, when he wonders why he jumps and his sister doesn't; he plans for earthquakes and nuclear winter and dinosaurs. Because he doesn't know how far he'll go.

He plans on the possibility that he won't come back.  
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He is nineteen when he moves to Caltech.

He is nineteen when he meets Leonard, Raj, and Howard.

He is nineteen when he jumps back and saves Leonard's life from Korean spies and rocket fuel.

He is twenty-two when he questions whether he should have.

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It's been two weeks since the Arctic. Twelve days since he'd been coaxed back from Texas.

Four hours since his last jump.

He's exhausted; If Penny notices the slight twang smoothing out the edges of his staccato displeasure she doesn't acknowledge it. Instead she settles herself on the bed, too close, and he can feel the smallness of her even as she fills up the whole room with her chatter. She hardly ever leaves him alone these days.

She's dating Leonard. She won't talk about it without getting defensive but she also won't let him touch her when Sheldon can see.

He wants to call it shame but he thinks it might just be a courtesy. (He doesn't let himself wonder if it's anything else).

She brushes his arm when she gets up and he is too busy trying to unclench that he doesn't notice that she pauses by the chair.

The chair that he left the red leather jacket, forgotten for years until betrayal led him home and he got nostalgic for how it all began. She is already trying it on because Penny is forever in his things (and in his gut and his past because she-)

Turns, and he thinks he see's his future.

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[author note]: so this is the story I started a year ago and then gave up on when my laptop burned out. Clearly, I had no idea what time traveler's wife was about but I thought it would have some cool doctor who type voodoo and be about living out consequences to actions you hadn't yet enacted and all that timey wimey stuff. I also knew that it was important that he ran, though I kinda lost the thread of why but it did make sense that all his routine and zombie plans were just possibilities that he needed to plan for because of his condition. This originally included a coda about running into a kid with penny's eyes but it was kinda super cheesy. It ends better with this.

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